A ductile connection is one that yields steel elements like anchor bolts or reinforcement, allowing for large deflections and load redistribution before failure. Building codes favor ductile design over brittle failures. The engineer must choose whether to size connections based on factored service loads or ultimate bolt capacity, with the latter often producing bolt forces over twice factored loads. This decision affects cost and the engineer should consider specifications, codes, load nature, failure consequences, and the structural system's ability to utilize anchorage ductility. Connections designed for ultimate bolt capacity can withstand peak short-term loads until they pass.
A ductile connection is one that yields steel elements like anchor bolts or reinforcement, allowing for large deflections and load redistribution before failure. Building codes favor ductile design over brittle failures. The engineer must choose whether to size connections based on factored service loads or ultimate bolt capacity, with the latter often producing bolt forces over twice factored loads. This decision affects cost and the engineer should consider specifications, codes, load nature, failure consequences, and the structural system's ability to utilize anchorage ductility. Connections designed for ultimate bolt capacity can withstand peak short-term loads until they pass.
A ductile connection is one that yields steel elements like anchor bolts or reinforcement, allowing for large deflections and load redistribution before failure. Building codes favor ductile design over brittle failures. The engineer must choose whether to size connections based on factored service loads or ultimate bolt capacity, with the latter often producing bolt forces over twice factored loads. This decision affects cost and the engineer should consider specifications, codes, load nature, failure consequences, and the structural system's ability to utilize anchorage ductility. Connections designed for ultimate bolt capacity can withstand peak short-term loads until they pass.
A ductile connection is one that yields steel elements like anchor bolts or reinforcement, allowing for large deflections and load redistribution before failure. Building codes favor ductile design over brittle failures. The engineer must choose whether to size connections based on factored service loads or ultimate bolt capacity, with the latter often producing bolt forces over twice factored loads. This decision affects cost and the engineer should consider specifications, codes, load nature, failure consequences, and the structural system's ability to utilize anchorage ductility. Connections designed for ultimate bolt capacity can withstand peak short-term loads until they pass.
A ductile connection can be defined as one that is controlled by yielding of steel
elements (anchor bolt or reinforcement) with large deflections, redistribution of
loads, and absorption of energy prior to any sudden loss of capacity of the anchorage resulting from a brittle failure of the concrete. ACI 318 and other building codes favor ductile design.
As a minimum, anchorage design loads should be factored service loads, as
required by ACI 318. However, there are valid reasons why the engineer may choose the design load to be the ultimate tensile capacity of the bolt. Reasons for making the anchor bolt, rather than the reinforcement, the "weak link" include easier detection and repair of damage from overload.
Sometimes client specifications dictate that design based on the ultimate capacity of bolts should be selected, but often the engineer must choose whether or not to use the ultimate tensile capacity of the bolt to determine the required embedment. This decision is an important one since it often affects the cost of the connections. The cost of connections using factored loads is generally less than those using ductile design as the design basis. Because of conservative bolt sizing by equipment manufacturers, corrosion allowances, and inherent conservatisms that result from the process of sizing a bolt by allowable stress and the concrete anchorage by ultimate strength, it is not uncommon for design based on the ultimate capacity of bolt to produce design forces on bolts which are more than twice the factored service loads.
The engineer should base the decision of design basis on client specifications, building code requirements, the nature of the applied loads, the consequence of failure, and the ability of the overall structural system to take advantage of the ductility of the anchorage.
3.4.1 Nature of Applied Loads
When peak loads are applied in a short-term or impulsive fashion, connections
based on the ultimate tensile capacity of the bolt can enable a structural support to continue to carry loads until the short-term peak has passed.
Likewise, anchorage design should allow for the redistribution of loads and absorption of energy, as required in seismic or blast-resistant design. When the characteristics and magnitude of the load are unusually unpredictable, the anchorage design should be based on the ultimate tensile capacity of the bolt.
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